Blood Bags & Container Patents: Top Companies, Trends 2026
- Concentration is steep at the top. the five leading assignees together hold 373 of the 587 records in scope, 63.5% of the field, and the top ten hold 83.6%.
- Filing has cooled from its peak. 2017 was the high-water mark at 47 records; the last complete year (2024) sits far below early-2020s levels, down 25% from 2021 to 2024.
- Devices and formulations dominate the claim map. A61M (body-fluid devices) and A61K (medicinal preparations) each touch close to half of all 587 records, while centrifuge and container-specific classes stay under 21%.
Filing growth compares 2021 (4 records) with 2024 (3) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 587 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Blood bags and container systems sit at the intersection of materials science and transfusion practice: plasticizer migration out of PVC film, gas permeability that keeps red cells viable, sterile tube-welding connections, and leukofilter integration inside a closed system. This dataset tracks 587 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine collection-bag or container-system language with at least one of those specific technical problems.
Because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one to two years in any trend understate real filing activity. The 2024 figures are the most recent that can be read as complete; anything after that is still arriving.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 587 records: how filing volume moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
Filings rose to a 2017 peak, then eased
Annual filings climbed to 47 in 2017, the peak across the window, then declined through the early 2020s. The comparable complete-year window shows 2021 at 4 records falling to 3 in 2024, a 25% drop over that span — read this as a maturing claim map rather than a shrinking field, since the underlying device and formulation classes stay heavily populated.
Devices and preparations lead; containers and sterilising trail
A61M (devices for body fluids) appears in 46.2% of the 587 records and A61K (medicinal preparations) in 44.0%, together framing the field around fluid-handling devices and the biological/chemical formulations they carry. A01N appears in 28.4%, while A61J (containers for medicine) and A61L (sterilising and disinfecting) each sit at 20.3% — lower density here signals room to file on container-specific and sterilisation-specific claims rather than the crowded device layer.
Shares are the percentage of the 587 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Blood Bags and Container Systems with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about blood bags and container systems and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited records
US4619642A — Sterile, cold cut connection process, apparatus and system
A process, apparatus and system for making a sterile connection between thermoplastic tubes. A section of each tube is flattened and a cutting means is urged through the flattened sections. The tubes are aligned with each other and then the cut tube ends are melted, sterilized, and urged together to form a joint between the tubes for each pair of tube ends to be connected. Each joint is cooled and then subjected to light stress to open the temporary seal in each tube, thereby providing fluid communication therethrough.Filed by E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, granted 1986 — a foundational sterile-connection method that predates and underlies much of the closed-system integrity claim space tracked here.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US4997577A | Systems and methods for removing undesired matter from blood cells | 200 |
| 2 | US6544727B1 | Methods and devices for the removal of psoralens from blood products | 177 |
| 3 | WO1995017236A1 | Filtration media and device for filtering leukocytes | 169 |
| 4 | US5593823A | Method for inactivating pathogens in blood using photoactivation of 4'-primary amino-substituted psoralens | 159 |
| 5 | US6059968A | Systems for processing and storing placenta/umbilical cord blood | 158 |
| 6 | US4369779A | Sterile docking process, apparatus and system | 154 |
| 7 | US5591337A | Apparatus for filtering leukocytes from blood cells | 139 |
| 8 | WO1996029865A1 | Organ evaluation and resuscitation device and method | 137 |
| 9 | WO1996040857A1 | Methods and devices for the removal of psoralens from blood products | 136 |
| 10 | US4619642A | Sterile, cold cut connection process, apparatus and system | 109 |
Citation counts reflect influence inside this searched corpus and skew toward older, foundational filings — not current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the filing pattern signals
Reading the concentration, the class split and the citation graph together points to a field with a settled core and a few still-open edges.
A short list of firms holds most of the ground
The five leading assignees combine for 373 of the 587 records in scope. That level of concentration means a new entrant is very likely to file adjacent to, not around, an incumbent's claims in the core device and formulation classes.
Volume has stepped down from its 2017 peak
Annual filings peaked at 47 in 2017 and the last complete year, 2024, sits at 3 — a 25% decline from 2021 to 2024 alone. That pattern is consistent with a technology whose core mechanisms are already claimed, pushing new filings toward narrower, more specific improvements.
Container-specific claims are thinner than device claims
A61M and A61K each appear in close to half the corpus, but A61J (containers for medicine) and A61L (sterilising and disinfecting) sit at only 20.3% each. That gap between device-layer crowding and container-layer thinness is where a freedom-to-operate search is most likely to find open ground.
Influence clusters around a handful of foundational filings
The most-cited record in this corpus draws 200 citations, and the next four most-cited sit between 158 and 177. These older filings on pathogen inactivation, leukocyte filtration and cord-blood processing still anchor the citation graph even though they are not the newest activity.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to blood bags and container systems, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gate sits
The ranking spans 100 companies counted by records, with a steep drop from the leader to the long tail. Momentum in the most recent year is muted across nearly every leading name, consistent with the broader 2021-2024 slowdown.
One filer sits well ahead of the field
The top-ranked assignee holds 131 records against a fifth-place figure of 57, more than double the gap seen further down the ranking. That spread suggests a single dominant filing program rather than several evenly matched competitors at the very top.
The drop from fifth to tenth is steep
Records fall from 57 at fifth place to 17 at tenth, a sharper decline than the drop from first to fifth. Firms sitting in this band are defending a position rather than expanding it, based on the recent-year momentum figures.
Co-filing is rare and concentrated
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in this corpus, and the strongest pairing accounts for 20 shared records — a hospital-industry pairing rather than a supplier network. Most of the field files independently.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| HemaNext Inc. | 1 | -50% |
| Baxter International Inc. | 0 | — |
| Cerus Corp | 0 | — |
| New Health Sciences Inc. | 0 | — |
| Fenwal Inc. | 0 | — |
| Velico Medical Inc. | 0 | — |
| Terumo KK | 0 | — |
| The Brigham & Women's Hospital Inc. | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The ranking and the class map point to specific follow-up work rather than a general read of the field.
Run a freedom-to-operate check on container-specific claims
A61J and A61L sit at 20.3% each against A61M's 46.2%, so a targeted search on bag-container and sterilisation-specific claims is more likely to surface open space than a device-layer search.
Search this claim space in EurekaTrack the leading assignee's recent filings closely
One firm holds 131 of the 587 records, well ahead of the field; monitoring its most recent publications is the fastest way to see where the dominant program is moving next.
Set up assignee monitoring in EurekaReassess once 2025-2026 publications land
The apparent slowdown after 2017 is partly a publication-lag artefact; revisit the trend once the 18-month lag has cleared for 2025 filings before drawing conclusions about a declining field.
Explore the full trend in EurekaCommon questions on this landscape
Filing in this space is concentrated: the five leading assignees together hold 373 of the 587 records in scope, or 63.5% of the field, and the top ten hold 83.6%. The single leading assignee holds 131 records, more than double the fifth-place figure of 57. This means a small number of programs, mostly established transfusion-medicine and blood-processing companies, control most of the claim space, and any new filer should expect to work around their positions rather than file into open ground.
Filings peaked in 2017 at 47 records and have declined since; comparing complete years, 2021 (4 records) to 2024 (3 records) shows a 25% drop over that span. That said, publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete and should not be read as proof the field has stopped moving. The safest reading is that the core mechanisms are heavily claimed, pushing new activity toward narrower improvements rather than foundational filings.
IPC class density points to container-specific and sterilisation-specific claims as comparatively thin: A61J (containers for medicine) and A61L (sterilising and disinfecting) each cover only 20.3% of the 587 records, versus 46.2% for A61M and 44.0% for A61K. Centrifuge-specific claims (B04B) sit even lower at 8.5%. Sub-areas like gas-permeability control built into the container itself, sterile tube-weld joint geometry, and leukofilter-to-bag integration hardware are worth a closer freedom-to-operate look.
US4619642A, filed by E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company and granted in 1986, claims a process and apparatus for making a sterile connection between thermoplastic tubes by flattening, cutting, aligning, melting and re-joining the tube ends under controlled cooling and stress. It is a method-and-apparatus claim on the sterile tube-welding mechanism itself, not on any specific bag design or formulation. Anyone building a closed-system connection device today needs to check whether their joining mechanism falls inside this claim's specific melt-cool-stress sequence or uses a materially different approach.
Citation counts in this corpus favour older filings: the most-cited record draws 200 citations, and the next four sit between 158 and 177, all filed well before the most recent filing years. High citation counts signal that a filing was influential and widely built upon, not that it represents the current state of the art or the most commercially relevant technology today. Use citation rank as a map of foundational prior art to design around, not as a guide to what is newly viable.
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company’s registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.